"Hermione?" Came the sound of a familiar voice from somewhere above me. It echoed slightly, and my ears refused to completely hear the sound.
"Hermione?" came the voice again, louder this time… more clear. I could feel someone shaking my shoulder.
"Hermione!" I bolted upright. Harry was sitting on my bed, shacking me awake. The question was, how did he get in?
"Harry! How…"
"Malfoy let me in." he said, answering before I could finish my question. "You look like shit." Friends always knew the right thing to say…
"Gee, thanks," I said, as I got off of the bed. "Why, pray tell, are you here?"
"You missed morning classes." He said.
"What! That's not possible! It's only…" I looked at my clock. 13.45. "Well… fuck!" I raced to my trunk and pulled out some clean clothes.
"You can give me our homework, right? I can't fall behind…" I said… and then couldn't stop talking, for some reason. " I've got a lot to do with head duties and all, and if I get behind in homework, I'll get behind in everything else and I'll be even more stressed than--"
"Hermione, calm down for a second!" said Harry. "I can give you the homework… but what's wrong?"
"What do you mean, what's wrong?" I asked, though I knew I was acting strangely. But, then… I had reason to be acting strangely, having just recently found out that my boyfriend was a deatheater, hell bent on destroying me.
"Hermione, don't play stupid. I can tell you've been crying. Tell me what's wrong." He pulled me back over to the bed so I was sitting next to him.
This was exactly the situation I had hoped to avoid… I knew Harry or Ron would notice there was something wrong with me. But I honestly didn't want to tell them what had happened.
"Well… you see" think of something plausible! Screamed my mind. "I…" think faster! "er… got a 98 on my Arithmancy exam…" yes! He'll believe that? Right? Right? No…
"Oh, c'mon, Hermione! Do you really expect me to believe that's what got you crying, and sleeping in until nearly two in the afternoon?"
"It was worth a shot…"
"Real reason, please…" said Harry, looking at me in that way he does. With his eyes all sad and hopeless… it made you want to tell him anything just to get that look out of his eyes. But that was how he looked much of the time.
"I…" I still didn't want to tell him. I sighed. "It's Malfoy." I started. Harry raised his eyebrows questioningly.
And then everything came pouring out. The staring, the flirting, the vague companionship, the sex, and the romance… the dark mark. I told him everything, from beginning to end. I could hardly stop myself from talking. And to my horror, by the time I was done telling him, I was crying again.
And he didn't say anything. He just let me cry on his shoulder, like I hadn't betrayed him. Like I hadn't been keeping this secret from him. Like none of it mattered.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" I asked, looking up at him.
"What do you want me to say?" He asked. Something! Anything! Let me know I wasn't talking to a brick wall.
"I don't know."
"I think… you should have told me sooner." He said. I looked away. "But I'm also glad you didn't… because I don't know what my reaction would have been."
We said nothing for several moments.
"And…" I said.
"And… I don't hate you. I don't feel betrayed. We don't control whom we lust after. That's something I know all too well. I can't blame you for anything."
"Thank you." I said. We sat in silence for several more moments, each of us in our own thoughts.
"Now!" he said, standing up, and pulling me up with him. "I have a plan!" He announced.
"A plan?" what on earth was he going on about?
"Yeah! A plan!" He exclaimed happily. "For you and Malfoy" he nodded his head.
"What do you mean me and Malfoy!" There was no 'me and Malfoy.' That part of my life was most definitely over.
"I think you need to talk to him." Harry said.
"WHAT!" How could Harry think that? After what he did! Why on earth would I EVER want to talk to that scum of the earth, deatheater, backstabbing, narcissistic –
"YES!" Harry interrupted my silent bout of name-calling. "Talk to him. Listen to what he has to say."
"Why the fuck would I want to do something stupid like that?" I asked, meaning it. Why would I subject myself to such torture? Just sitting near him would remind me of how be betrayed me. How he deceived me.
"Because… from what you've told me… I don't think he would do anything to hurt you."
"You know… besides kill me, obviously"
"C'mon, Hermione.."
"Fine… I'll talk to him."
"Good. Now… get dressed!" Said Harry, as he started to exit the room. "We'll go to class."
Yeah… I would talk to Malfoy all right. I'm not sure how much listening I would do, but I would most certainly do some talking.
Author's Note: Wow... I am soooo sorry for taking so long to update. School got in the way. And I've had so much personal drama in the past few weeks... it's pretty crazy. Damn fuckin' love triangles. Anyhoo... review, even though the chapter sucks (but every single chapter sucks, so... ), and it's short... I'm sorry!
